DEATH RITUALS: PHOBOCOSM, MIASMAL, KRIEGSMASCHINE

I haven’t had time to pull together a round-up of new discoveries in a couple of days, but I thought that before I get further behind I would at least call out four recent songs that are worth some attention Two of them are precursors to new albums due for release later this year and otwone come from an album that hit the streets in February.

PHOBOCOSM

Phobocosm are from Montreal and in recent days they were signed by the Dark Descent label for the release of their debut album, Deprived, which was mixed and mastered by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, Krallice). NCS scribe Austin Weber brought them to my attention, thinking their music would be up my alley, and man was he ever right.

Just a few days ago the band released the first song from Deprived for public consumption, and it’s a monster. The dreadful chiming chords that begin “Solipsist” are like the bells that herald the final doom, and the rest of the song provides a reasonable approximation of that event. Phobocosm marry crushing riffs and ever-changing drumbeats to bleak, needling tremolo melodies and a gargantuan voice that emanates from some deep pit in the earth.

The song’s pacing gradually accelerates, building an air of tension, and my only complaint is that it ends too soon. I wanted to find out how the world ends.

https://www.facebook.com/Phobocosm

 

 

 

MIASMAL

Miasmal are a Gothenburg death metal band who share members with Agrimonia and Martyrdöd and whose self-titled debut album came out in 2011. Their second album, Cursed Redeemer, is scheduled for an April 21 release by Century Media. Yesterday Terrorizer premiered the first advance track from the album, a dismembering ode named “Until the Last”.

That song sets the hook hard in the first half-minute and then proceeds to jam it in deeper and deeper over the course of a five-minute romp of crust-covered death metal. The vocalist howls like a mad wolf, the guitarists let loose one fleet-fingered riff after another, and there are a couple of head-whipping guitar solos that dial the voltage up into the red. This song rocks really fuckin’ hard — and at the end, the whole thing comes apart at the seams. Awesome.

https://www.facebook.com/miasmal

 

 

 

KRIEGSMASCHINE

Back in December 2011 I was all set to begin rolling out my list of that year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, and I knew exactly how I would start the list — with a song by Poland’s Kriegsmaschine from a split entitled Transfigurations that I had listened to at least as much as any other song that year. And then I found out it had been released in 2010. Man was I pissed — but I posted about the song anyway.

Since then, I’ve lost track of the band — they’ve released no new songs since that split. But while poking around Phobocosm’s Facebook page earlier today I spied a link to a YouTube clip of a new Kriegsmaschine song. Hallelujah! And what’s more, it’s on a new album named Enemy of Man that I didn’t know existed despite the fact that it was released in February (by the band’s own label, No Solace).

I haven’t tracked down the album yet, but let me tell you about “None Shall See Redemption”. You may think that’s a choir of angels in the intro, but what follows is not angelic, unless we’re talking about fallen angels. As bleak and evil as the song’s atmosphere soon becomes, the eerie riffing and fascinating, off-kilter drumwork separate the song from anything approaching “standard” black metal. It’s saturated with a poisonous miasma, but really fascinating from start to finish — and the finish got stuck in my head just like that song from 2011 did. The enraged proclamations of the vocalist will also make the hair on your arms stand up.

You should also listen hear “To Ashen Havens”. It’s another song from the new album that’s also available on YouTube, and I’ve included it below, along with “None Shall See Redemption”. It also emanates an air of occult ritual, the otherworldly guitar chords summoning vistas of an alien, Lovecraftian landscape. And wow, the drumming on this song is just as transfixing as on the first one. I can’t believe I haven’t seen more news about this album, because these two songs are aces.

https://www.facebook.com/ksmpl
http://www.kriegsmaschine.pl